


the sedge, wither’d by the lake

by betony



Category: Die Gänsemagd | The Goose Girl
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Revisionist Fairy Tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: Will they sing, do you think, of the king who was clever but not half so much as he should have been?I think not.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	the sedge, wither’d by the lake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gehayi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/gifts).



Will they sing, do you think, of the king who was clever but not half so much as he should have been? 

I think not.

Surely I mean no disrespect, not I, that sagging horse-head you left upon your walls as trophy to your commitment to justice. You ride under my sun-blanched skull, my coal-black hairs, and call _Falada, Falada_! but I never speak, not to you. Your daughter-in-law listens, though, to the silence, and sometimes she smiles.

Think not upon that, Majesty.

Remember instead your first sight of me, at the head of a procession delivering a foreign princess to your hand: remember that bridle of gold, and the luminous jewels I wore, plaited into my mane by no human hand. “What strange adornments your people create,” you told the woman who claimed to be your son’s intended, and overlooked her drawn face, her white lips. 

_A liar and a cheat_ , you named her not six moons later, and you never even asked who she was or where she came from. I knew her, you know, from the start; I drank in the delicious envy on her face the instant her guardian’s wife returned from the waves and brought back a daughter. Strange, the difference a foster sister makes: enough to demote one from darling of the castle to dullard little seen, least loved. To name her lady-in-waiting was a kindness on her foster mother’s part. Not one in a thousand would have allowed such to overshadow their own child.

For the girl you ordered killed was a wonder, in her own way. What a queen she might have made; far better than that milksop of a son you possess. You saw that too, in that first instant—part of the reason, perhaps, why you always mistrusted her so. Lovely, light-fingered, levelheaded, too: I knew that when I saw the little gasp on her lips when she noticed me before her, that curl of her fingers to keep them from tangling themselves in my mane, that doomed dream of how it might seem to ride on my back. She stayed where she was, though, and did not succumb, so that I wanted her all the more. And what I want, I always have in the end. 

She said not a word when her father kissed his new daughter farewell, and passed her by without a word; nor when her foster mother pricked a finger and squeezed out three drops of blood to stain the silk scarf she knitted about her daughter’s neck; nor even when it was decreed that the new princess should ride upon me, and her lady-in-waiting trudge behind on the ground.

Clever girl. She knew, as her father did not, what it means when a queen creeps out from cold waters, when she smiles at you and offers to share your bed. It means a daughter with skin smooth as stone, with golden hair that never dries, with eyes luminous as will-o’-the-wisps. It means woe to any who stand in her way.

She knew that, the girl who defied our schemes, and yet she watched me out of the corners of her eyes and clenched her fists tighter. 

I approached her when we made camp that first night we made camp, snuffling about her shoulders as horses will. She held herself very still and looked directly ahead; and when her mistress bade her go to the river and fetch her a cup of water, she gathered up all her courage and refused.

The princess—your daughter-in-law, Majesty—only smiled and showed her small perfect teeth. We have a taste for defiance, in small amounts; it makes a garnish not unlike your sprigs of parsley and basil. Then the princess yawned, and stretched, and excused herself to bed; and left her lady-in-waiting sitting by the dying fire, trying to read her fate in the ashes.

The shadows whispered to her; she did not listen.

The day following, the lady-in-waiting walked behind her mistress until her shoes were worn through—for neither the princess nor her mount required rest or refreshment. In the evening, though I lipped at her earlobe and the princess bade her fetch water from the riverbank, the lady-in-waiting stayed firm. The horse flicked its tail, and the princess bared her teeth in her friendliest fashion, and still the stubborn lady-in-waiting curled up by the fire, her back to them.

At least until the moon rose, and a fine young lad crept to her side. Sharp black eyes had he, and a fine long nose, and hair that curled to his shoulders. Even those freckles that dotted his cheeks only dared do so with utmost purpose.

(Yes, Majesty. As unlike your feckless son as it is possible to be.)

He crooned in the lady-in-waiting’s ear, singing to her until she watered from the eyes: he hungered until he remembered they were only brine. He whispered to her alongside the shadows, of courage and chances, of history and heroics, and oh, how she listened.

The next morning, the princess allowed her silk scarf to unknot itself and fall into the river’s waiting grasp.

You know the rest. Seeing her opportunity the valiant lady-in-waiting overpowered her foe, and—without wondering how _easy_ it had been—arrived in triumph at your gates. She said little, except to beg that her companion be exiled and the creature she rode be executed—were it not so, she promised you, great misery would come of it. Only you did not believe her.

Clever girl. She knew, as you did not, what it means when an unnaturally pretty serving girl pleads with you for a place in your household, even minding the geese, when she prays you will do her the one kindness of salvaging her horse’s severed head to rest upon the city walls. It means the chance to harvest the souls of courtiers and commoners alike; it means that no one questioned why no one could remember previously meeting young Conrad, with his sharp black eyes and fine curls and freckles, who brought the goose-girl to Your Majesty’s attention when the time was right.

 _A liar and a cheat_ , you named her, when she claimed to be the daughter of your old friend the King—by bonds of affection if not blood—and when she only ever prayed, even naked in a nail-studded barrel, to keep you and your own safe from the river’s revenge.

Still my skull hangs to speak disaster to those who hear, and still my other self labors at your daughter-in-law’s side, seducing bashful stablehands and sly servitors alike, and still none of you, save our poor martyr, thought anything might be wrong.

And now at last the end of your tale, but never fear: put your faith in me and trust that it shall be painless. Come now, ride on my back, as soon many others have done. Card your fingers through my mane and pick out the marsh-weeds; look up at the moonlight with your last breaths and remember all your old nursemaid’s tales of death and demons.

Will they sing, do you think, of the King foolish enough to meet his end on a kelpie’s back, who left his precious kingdom to a water-witch and a witless prince, who trusted in an iron stove to guarantee honesty?

Truly, Majesty, I think not.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats. Happy Yuletide, and I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
